Deuteronomy 20:11If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.

Joshua 9:11So the elders and inhabitants of our land told us, 'Take provisions for your journey; go to meet them and say to them: We are your servants. Please make a treaty with us.'

2 Kings 10:5So the palace administrator, the overseer of the city, the elders, and the guardians sent a message to Jehu: "We are your servants, and we will do whatever you say. We will not make anyone king. Do whatever is good in your sight."

Treasury of Scripture

And they said to Joshua, We are your servants. And Joshua said to them, Who are you? and from from where come you?

Joshua 8:11,23,25,27 And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of Ai: now there was a valley between them and Ai…

Genesis 9:25,26 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren…

Deuteronomy 20:11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

Verse 8. - We are thy servants. This does not mean altogether, as ver. 9 shows, that the Gibeonites intended by this embassy to reduce themselves to servitude. Their object, as Grotius remarks, was rather to form an alliance on terms of something like equality. The phrase was one common in the East as a token of respect (e.g., Genesis 32:4, 18; Genesis 50:18; 2 Kings 10:5; 2 Kings 16:7). But no doubt the Gibeonites (see ver. 11) expected to have a tribute laid on them. And they would willingly accept such an impost, for, as Ewald remarks ( 'History of Israel,' 4:3), their object was "to secure the peace which a mercantile inland city especially requires" (see also note on Joshua 3:10). From whence come ye? Joshua uses the imperfect, not the perfect, tense here. Commentators are divided about its meaning. Some suppose that the perfect, "from whence have ye come?" is mere direct and abrupt than "from whence may you have come?" or, "from whence were you coming?" and certainly an indirect question is in most languages considered more respectful than a direct one (see Genesis 42:7). But perhaps with Ewald we may regard it simply as implying that their mission was still in progress.

9:3-13 Other people heard these tidings, and were driven thereby to make war upon Israel; but the Gibeonites were led to make peace with them. Thus the discovery of the glory and the grace of God in the gospel, is to some a savour of life unto life, but to others a savour of death unto death, 2Co 2:16. The same sun softens wax and hardens clay. The falsehood of the Gibeonites cannot be justified. We must not do evil that good may themselves to the God of Israel, we have reason to think Joshua would have been directed by the oracle of God to spare their lives. But when they had once said, We are come from a far country, they were led to say it made of skins, and their clothes: one lie brings on another, and that a third, and so on. The way of that sin is especially down-hill. Yet their faith and prudence are to be commended. In submitting to Israel they submitted to the God of Israel, which implied forsaking their idolatries. And how can we do better than cast ourselves upon the mercy of a God of all goodness? The way to avoid judgment is to meet it by repentance. Let us do like these Gibeonites, seek peace with God in the rags of abasement, and godly sorrow; so our sin shall not be our ruin. Let us be servants to Jesus, our blessed Joshua, and we shall live.